Let's talk, just like before

01

One night when I had nothing to do, I edited a circle of friends like this on WeChat: Do you still remember the place where we first met? After posting this post to Moments, I was stunned for a while, quietly anticipating what interesting comments I would receive in a while.

When I turned on my phone again, I saw those comments. Some were former classmates, some were friends I met on the road while traveling, and some were friends with whom I had a good relationship. Looking through the comments, the scene of meeting them for the first time came to mind. There was a very heartwarming comment: The first time I met you was in the junior high school class. After so many years, the world has changed. The only thing that remains unchanged is your baby face.

This is a good friend from junior high school. He is a very funny boy. He fell in love with a girl at first sight on the first day of junior high school and has been secretly in love with her for seven years. This incident left a particularly deep impression on me. Sometimes I would complain to my former gay friends about how there could be such simple and dedicated boys these days.

When I think of this, I actually feel a little sad. Many of the people who made these comments have lost contact and haven’t thought of them for a long time. Some even can’t remember the last time they met. Maybe I will try to recall the stories that happened only when I comment on my circle of friends.

I don’t know since when, we seem to be getting busier and busier, and we have less and less time to sit down and talk with our friends. The good friends who were tired of being together every day in school seem to have become friends. It’s a group of friends who like each other, but when I think about it, it’s just a group message for blessings during the New Year and the holidays.

As I grow older, my life becomes cooler and cooler, but my friends are lost along the way.

02

I remember that I had a deskmate for three years in high school. No matter how we changed seats, or even when we were divided into classes for arts and sciences, we were always deskmates. That's three years. At that time, we both loved words and often showed each other what we wrote. It was like there was a kind of resonance, and each other was the one who understood each other best. In countless boring math classes that we couldn’t understand, we would always write and scratch on the scratch paper. When we read a nice new book, we would always want to be the first to share it with her.

When I was a freshman in high school, during a morning jog, I, who had always been terrible at sports, made a bold promise: I must run a 1,500-meter run at a sports meeting before graduating from high school. Now that you have said it, you must do it. In my senior year of high school, I signed up for the first sports meeting in my life and ran a thousand and five times.

When it came time to play, I admitted that I was a little timid and wanted to give up. The senior year of high school was very tight, and most students were studying by themselves in the classroom. But my deskmate came over to me when I was about to go on stage and said: Jiujiu, go run, I will accompany you, don’t forget what you said at the beginning, you must work hard.

I was very moved at the time, and the courage value kept rising. I thought my deskmate would only accompany me for a short distance, but I didn’t expect that she would accompany me all the way to the finish line from the moment the referee gave the order. Whenever I wanted to stop walking or couldn't run anymore and wanted to give up, she was always by my side and said: Jiujiu, come on, don't give up.

In this way, I unexpectedly finished the whole race. Although I was in last place, I was completely behind the first place. But I am really satisfied, and that sense of accomplishment is indescribable.

After finishing the run, I hugged my deskmate gently and said: Thank you for the courage you gave me. Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the run. She said: Jiujiu, you are great, you must remember, no matter what in the future, don't give up easily what you pursue.

Some things may be forgotten in the blink of an eye, and some people may not be seen when you turn around, but the precious thing is that they are all an indispensable part of the memory.

03

At that time, I came up with the idea of ??writing a novel. When I wrote page after page by hand, she was my reader and the only one.

Bei Dao wrote in "Visitors from Poland": "Back then we had dreams, about literature, about dreams, about traveling through time. Now when we drink late at night, when the cups touch each other, it's all broken dreams. sound.

”

At that time, we were young and arrogant. We seemed to be able to conquer the whole world and did not fall into the complicated clichés of society. We were simply lucky.

On the eve of the college entrance examination, because of some The reason was that my deskmate and I had the most serious conflict in history. It had nothing to do with right or wrong, maybe it was just a collision of opinions. She said it felt like being betrayed by a close friend of three years.

Later, we had an in-depth communication, trying to resolve the misunderstanding and reconcile as before.

But we seemed to have forgotten that it is not easy to have someone who can understand us. Once we no longer have this kind of "empathy." "After that, everything seemed to have changed, and she and I were so stubborn. No matter how much we said, "Let the past be bygones," it seemed that we could never go back to the way we were before.

In this way, the last time we met after graduation was at a class reunion. We sat at the farthest corners of the table. There were no words, no eye contact, and we had a tacit understanding of each other when we separated. Say hello.

For a long time after this, I always thought, if I had been more proactive that day, would we have been the same as before?

From then on, it never happened again. She shared the article she had written with me, and the unfinished novel was never touched again.

04

Later, when I went to college, I could see her occasionally. When she shares her mood or articles in her circle of friends, her words are still delicate and melancholy, but I am no longer the first person she shows them to after she writes them.

As for me, Sometimes I want to write something, but when I pick up the pen, there is no coherent idea. I really want to ask myself whether I don’t have this talent, or I have forgotten the girl who wanted to write seriously.

In this situation. In an era of rapid development of the Internet, fewer and fewer people sit down to read a book, and fewer and fewer people sit down and chat with friends. It seems that mobile phones and various social apps are their best friends.

Only in the dead of night, when my emotions are a little overflowing, I want to find someone to talk to, so I pick up my phone and look through my address book but can't find a suitable person. Everyone is busy, so don’t bother me.

But, I still want to say: Hey, long time no see! Let’s talk, like before.